Chaser
by Northumbrian
Summary: As Angelina Johnson takes the Hogwarts Express back to school for her seventh year, she has a problem.


**Chaser**

_Morning_

When the Hogwarts Express lurched into motion and began its long journey north, Angelina Johnson was still walking along the train's corridor, dragging her heavy trunk behind her. She looked into every compartment as she slowly made her way from carriage to carriage. As she walked, she wondered what she would do if she found the Weasley twins before she found Alicia, or worse, what she would do if, as was often the case, the twins were with her friend. The chances of her being able to find an opportunity to speak to Fred alone were infinitesimal.

Peering into the next compartment, she saw Harry Potter. He was looking a little glum, but then his two best friends were missing. Harry was sharing the compartment with Ron's kid sister, Ginny, and two others. One was a peculiar-looking blonde girl; the other was the fair-haired boy—Longbottom, that was his name—from Harry's dorm. He was clutching a weird-looking cactus. Angelina silently summed up the quartet, and decided that if Alicia was with the twins she would return and join Harry and his friends.

As she continued along the corridor, Angelina saw the Ravenclaw Seeker, Chang, approaching with some other girls. Reminded of the Yule Ball, Angelina glared at the younger girl, forcing her to move out of the way. As Angelina moved on into the next carriage, she turned back to see Chang enter Harry's compartment. Shrugging, she continued on her way. Halfway up the carriage, she reached an invitingly empty compartment; she considered entering it, but then she heard her friend.

'Out!' Alicia bellowed. 'I'm saving these seats.'

Three frightened-looking first-year girls in brand new Hogwarts robes scuttled hastily out from the next compartment.

'There's an empty compartment here,' Angelina told the three little girls. 'Don't mind her, her bark is worse than her bite.'

Angelina waited and, suddenly aware of running feet behind her, took a step backwards. She blocked the corridor and preventing a couple of desperate-looking first-year boys from getting to the cabin first. Beckoning the girls towards her, she slid open the door, and ushered them inside.

She turned to the two boys. 'Don't you dare try to throw them out; I'm going to be in the next compartment.'

'You're not a prefect,' one of the two boys observed, staring cockily back at her.

'No,' she admitted. 'But I'm Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, and I know all of the prefects. I'm not going to stop you from going in there with them. You should make friends; that's what this train journey is all about.'

Angelina watched the two boys sidle into the compartment and look carefully at the girls. As she watched the five first-years exchanging nervous greetings, her mind began to wander.

* * *

The train was packed, and it was the first space she'd found. Angelina looked apprehensively into the compartment full of redheads.

There were only four of them, but they seemed to have commandeered the entire place. The two smallest boys were kneeling on the seats next to the window. They were short, shorter than she was, and stocky. The other two boys were older. One was thin and bespectacled; the other was, like the twins, solidly built. All four were staring out of the window at a plump red-haired woman who was holding on to two other children, also redheads. It seemed to Angelina that the long-nosed boy on the platform was as tall as the two boys in the compartment; the girl, however, was tiny. The trio outside were waving at the quartet in the compartment.

'Is anyone sitting here?' she asked timidly, wishing that her mother had waited to wave her off. She pointed to the nearest of the two vacant seats. The train juddered and began to slowly rumble out of the station.

'Yeah,' one of the boys at the window said, sounding surprised. 'Our invisible friends are already sitting there, aren't they George?'

'Yes, Fred,' the other little boy nodded in agreement. 'Can't you see them?'

'Don't listen to them,' the bespectacled boy said. 'There are only the four of us.'

'Yeah,' said the oldest boy. 'Where are your manners, twins?'

'Don't have any manors,' one of the twins, the one called Fred, said.

'Yeah, we're too poor,' added George. 'We live in a batty little Burrow, not a big posh manor.'

Angelina giggled. The bespectacled boy frowned and sighed, but the oldest boy chuckled. 'That's terrible, even for you two,' he said.

Uncertain whether or not she should enter, Angelina hesitated. Before she could make up her mind, she saw a shadow. Someone was behind her. Angelina turned around to see a burly boy in his early teens. He wasn't small but the two behemoths he was with dwarfed him.

'Excuse me, little girl,' he said. His Scottish-accented voice was pleasant, if rather bossy. 'You weren't going to sit in here, were you? Why don't you move further up the train? There's a compartment three doors up that only has a couple of first-years in it. I'll even carry your trunk for you, if you like.'

Without waiting for her answer, the boy looked straight over Angelina's head and addressed the oldest boy.

'Hi, Charlie. I ran into Hall and Runne in the corridor,' he said, gesturing at the two monsters behind him. 'We were hoping that we could grab a compartment together, and have a team talk.'

'I'm supposed to be looking after these two, Oliver,' Charlie told the earnest-sounding boy. 'Helping them make new friends and stuff.'

'Don't worry, Charlie,' Fred said.

'We can make friends without your help,' George added. He grinned at Angelina. 'After all, we don't want to listen to you talking Quidditch tactics.'

'Is this Oliver Wood? The boy you were talking about over the Summer, the one who…' Fred began.

'Shut it,' Charlie growled threateningly. 'What do you think, Perce?' he asked the bespectacled boy.

Perce simply shrugged.

'Okay, you can go,' said Charlie. 'At least then I'll be able to have an adult conversation with Oliver.'

'Great,' said Fred, picking up one end of Angelina's trunk. 'We'll take that. Our lovely big brothers will take care of our luggage for us, because we're only little, and our trunks are really heavy.

'But not as heavy as Percy's,' added George.

'Yeah, you really should take those bricks out from it,' said Fred as he scuttling past the bespectacled boy. 'Bye, Charlie, you can talk to Oliver-would-be-a-good-Keeper-if…'

'I said shut it!' Charlie bellowed.

The boy called Oliver looked curiously at the twins.

'We'll leave you to listen to Quidditch tactics all the way to Hogwarts,' said George as Percy, looking furious, stood and began to unlock his trunk.

'Except you won't listen, because you'll spend the whole time with your nose in a book,' added Fred.

'C'mon, girl whose name we don't know yet, 'cos we're rude, sorry.' said George. 'Let's leave the Gryffindor Quidditch team…'

'And Percy,' interjected Fred.

'To talk tactics.'

'To talk tactics, twin?'

'To talk tournament tactics, twin,' said George.

'To talk team tournament tactics, twins,' Angelina said, joining in the alliterative game as the twins infectious madness captured her.

The two boys chuckled, and grinned at her.

I'm Fred Weasley,' said Fred as the twins and Angelina pushed their way past Oliver, and the two enormous hulks he'd called Hall and Runne.

'And I'm George Jones. I've never met this kid before, but he looks just like me! Astonishing, isn't it?' asked George.

'I'm Angelina Johnson,' she told them, smiling. 'And who were those three?'

'That was Oliver-would-be-a-good-Keeper-if-he-would-only-sto p-talking-tactics,' said Fred.

'At least that's what Charlie called him over the summer,' said George.

'For some reason, Charlie didn't want us to tell Oliver that,' observed Fred as they wandered along the corridor. 'The other two are the Gryffindor Beaters. They leave at the end of this year.'

'And we're going to replace them,' said George confidently.

They soon found the compartment Oliver had told them about. The only two occupants were a brown-haired girl and a dreadlocked boy, who were eyeing each other up cautiously.

'Hello, I'm Fred Weasley,' George announced as he strolled into the compartment. 'This is my identical twin sister, Angelina, and this is some random kid we just met.'

The boy burst out laughing. 'Nice one,' he said. 'I'm Lee Jordan.' He held out his hand, but pulled it back and thumbed his nose when Fred tried to shake it.

Fred laughed.

'And I'm Alicia Spinnett,' the brown-haired girl said quietly.

'Who fancies a game of exploding snap?' George asked, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket.

* * *

_Everyone thinks I'm a liar. No one knows the truth_

Angelina cautiously approached the compartment, hoping that the twins would not be there. To her relief, they were not. She could deal with that problem later.

Alicia was sitting with Katie Bell and Katie's friend, Leanne. The three girls looked up as Angelina entered. Alicia, didn't even bother with a greeting. She started speaking the moment she saw Angelina, and her first word was: 'Why?'

'Why? Why what?' asked Angelina, bewildered both by Alicia's question, and by the searching gazes all three girls were giving her.

'You and Fred, what happened? Why did you break his heart?' asked Alicia angrily.

'Why did I break his heart? Merlin! What makes you think he has one?' replied Angelina bitterly. 'I've no idea what you're taking about, Alicia. Who've you been talking to? I haven't broken anything; I haven't done anything.'

'What do you mean, you haven't done anything?' snapped Alicia. 'You've ditched him, haven't you?'

'What?' Angelina asked, as the reality of her world once again rearranged itself. It was an occupational hazard of being a friend of the twins. A solid looking chair might collapse under you, a sweet might turn your face blue for a week, anything might happen.

'I've ditched him?' asked Angelina. 'Who told you that?'

Alicia stared up at her friend and fellow Chaser, her annoyance turning to bewilderment. She turned to Katie, and glared at the younger girl. Katie simply looked puzzled.

'I met Leanne in Diagon Alley a couple of weeks ago,' Katie began hesitantly. 'We were shopping for our school things when we stopped at Florean Fortescue's, and ran into Lee.'

Katie glanced across at her friend, and Leanne nodded in agreement. 'We did,' she confirmed.

'Lee told me that he'd seen the twins a couple of days earlier,' said Katie. 'He was full of himself, you know Lee. Once he starts talking it's difficult to get him to stop. He said that the twins were definitely going to set up a joke shop. He said they'd got some start-up money from somewhere, and they were buying ingredients for joke items. Then Lee asked if I'd seen you, if I knew…'

Katie stared earnestly at Angelina. 'Lee went a bit quiet, and that's not like him. He didn't tell me everything, but he did say that you'd chucked Fred. George agreed. According to Lee, Fred was really down about it, and George wasn't very happy, either.'

'And did he say when this happened?' asked Angelina icily.

'At the end of term,' said Katie hesitantly.

'Hah!' Angelina yelped triumphantly. 'I was sitting with you lot on the train home, remember?'

'Oh, yeah,' Katie admitted. 'You were sitting on Fred's knee, then the twins saw Malfoy and his cronies acting suspiciously, and they went of to see what they were up to.'

'And they didn't come back,' said Angelina. 'We saw the twins when we got off the train, Alicia. They were talking to Harry, and they were looking very pleased with themselves. I bet Harry gave them the money. He didn't want to take the Tournament winnings.' She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

'So you didn't…' Alicia began, she left the sentence unfinished.

'I didn't what?' asked Angelina. 'I did not ditch him, Alicia. And I didn't shag him either, if that's what you really want to know.'

'I … I don't fancy him anymore,' said Alicia huffily. 'I really don't care what you did with him. Not in the slightest, not at all. It wouldn't bother me if you had … done anything.'

Her friend was protesting too much, Angelina realised. Until this latest peculiar encounter, the closest she and Alicia had ever come to fighting was when Fred had asked her to the Yule Ball. Alicia had sulked and moped and, when Angelina had asked what was wrong, the dam had burst.

_'I really fancied him, you must have known. I've dropped enough hints,' said Alicia tearfully._

_'I didn't, sorry. I must be a bit thick,' Angelina told her. It was the only thing she could say. The truth "I did, but I said yes to him anyway," would simply twist the knife in Alicia's wound._

As Angelina sat in silence, gathering her thoughts, she was aware of the three girls staring at her. She was finally paying for saying yes to Fred. She should have said no. She'd always preferred gentle George to fiery Fred, but George hadn't been the one to ask her, and she liked boldness, too.

Images of the eight months since the Yule Ball flashed through Angelina's mind.

___'We can still all be friends, too,' Fred had said. George had agreed, and so had she. It was a lie. She'd been friends with the twins, but suddenly she was Fred's girl, and that left George lost in limbo._

_They had danced themselves to exhaustion, and kissed and cuddled. They had giggled and snogged their way through the term to the Easter holidays via a very passionate Valentine's Day trip to Hogsmeade. They'd met up during the Easter holidays, and the trip back to Hogwarts had passed in a haze of kissing and cuddling._

_After Easter, things had continued as before, except that the passion had increased. But there had always been something nagging at the back of her mind._

_And then Cedric had been killed and, apparently, You-Know-Who was back._

_The train journey home had been subdued. She'd sat on Fred's knee, but he, and George, had left them in the compartment, and she hadn't seen him since. She'd written. She had sent two owls to him over the summer holidays, but he had not replied. Her stubborn pride had taken over, and she'd simply sat back and waited for a response which never came. What if he had replied? Perhaps his letter had been lost and her lack of response was the problem._

Horrified by her ridiculous anxieties, Angelina pulled herself together. Fred was unstoppable, she reminded herself as she dragged herself from the doldrums. If he'd wanted to contact her, he would have done. He hadn't. She cursed her stupidity.

Angelina had been frightened of running into the twins because she didn't know how to react to Fred. After more than a month without contact, what should she do? Kiss him? Ignore him? Pretend that nothing had happened. Now, she knew. Making her decision, she shook her head determinedly, and turned to address her friends.

'I wrote to him over the summer. He didn't reply,' she said simply. 'He's chosen to work on his stupid joke shop idea instead. That's all there is too it. Fred's just winding Lee up. He's obviously not interested in me, and I'm not interested in him, either.' As she spoke, she realised that for once she wasn't lying about her feelings.

Katie gasped. There was a calculating look in Alicia's eye.

'I'll make him pay,' she said. She reached into her robes and pulled out her badge. 'Say hello to your new Quidditch Captain, ladies,' If Fred and George thought that Oliver was a hard taskmaster, wait until they see what I've got in store for them.'


End file.
